The FHISO Board met by Google Hangout on 16 March 2017 at 1300 UTC. Amendments of the Bylaws were proposed: (A) to remove references to the Membership Standing Committee (MSC) from the Bylaws; (B) to rename the Technical Standing Committee officers to be consistent with the newly renamed Membership Coordinators; and (C) to make various other minor editorial changes to the Bylaws. A revised Appeals Process Policy was circulated, including changes discussed in the earlier Board Meeting.

The Board and TSC have recognised that FHISO’s by-laws, the TSC charter, and the TSC operations and policy manual were designed with a large organization in mind and are impeding work with the present number of volunteers. We plan to adopt a much less structured, more volunteer-based interim process until our governance structure is overhauled, and technical work towards our priorities will occur in a “committee of the whole” on the tsc-public mailing list.

FHISO were pleased to welcome Tony Proctor, recently appointed Vice Chair of FHISO, to his first board meeting on Friday. The minutes can be found online.

Tony is a Genealogist with considerable experience in software design and development. He graduated in physics but entered computing in late 1970’s. Born in Nottingham, England, Tony is currently working from rural Ireland.

The following individuals are presently serving as members of the Executive Committee of Family History Information Standards Organisation.

Officers:

Drew Smith – Chair

Drew Smith is an Assistant Librarian with the Academic Services unit of the University of South Florida (USF) Tampa Library, and serves as the liaison librarian to the USF School of Information and to the Florida Center for Cybersecurity. He has taught graduate-level courses in genealogical librarianship and indexing/abstracting, and undergraduate-level courses in web design. Drew earlier worked for academic computing departments at USF and at Clemson University (South Carolina).He is a past Director of FGS (2008-2013), past chair of its Technology Committee, and currently the “Rootsmithing with Technology” columnist for its FORUM magazine. He is past Secretary of the Association of Professional Genealogists (APG). Drew is President of the Florida Genealogical Society of Tampa and has served on the board of the Florida State Genealogical Society. He administers the GENEALIB electronic mailing list with over 1200 genealogy librarians as subscribers, a list he founded in 1996.Drew has been the co-host of The Genealogy Guys Podcast since September 2005, and together with George G. Morgan has produced over 270 one-hour episodes. Drew is author of the book Social Networking for Genealogists, published in 2009 by Genealogical Publishing Company, and with George is co-author of the book Advanced Genealogy Research Techniques, published in 2013 by McGraw-Hill. Drew has written extensively for NGS NewsMagazine (now NGS Magazine), Genealogical Computing, and Digital Genealogist.Drew holds a Bachelor of Science in Electrical and Computer Engineering and a Master of Science in Industrial Management from Clemson University, and a Master of Arts in Library and Information Science from USF.

Roger Moffat – Secretary

Roger Moffat is a transplant from New Zealand, where he last worked as the Manager of the New Zealand Research Station in Antarctica. He has been been involved in FHISO from its start and BetterGEDCOM as well. Roger studied Agricultural Engineering in New Zealand in the 1970s, and became interested in genealogy when he bought his first Macintosh computer in 1988.Serving as Genealogist for the Clan Moffat Society and DataMaster for the Western Michigan Genealogical Society, Roger is well versed in the challenges associated with moving genealogical data between different applications and formats. He’s looking forward to a standards-driven environment where things “just work”.

Greg Lamberson – Treasurer

Greg Lamberson, longtime genealogist, who runs the genealogy website at http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~glamberson/ . Also an organizing member of FHISO ( http://www.fhiso.org ). Greg has extensive experience managing an organization’s technological growth and long-range plan in conjunction with its business goals. His specialities are IT management, Network architecture, cross-platform integration, and strategic planning. He is presently employed as Chief Information Officer- Egypt by VSE Corporation.

Luther Tychonievich – Technical Standing Committee Coordinator

Luther Tychonievich earned his doctorate in computer science in 2013 and now teaches in the computer science department at the University of Virginia. He became involved with FHISO in early 2013, becoming its secretary in August 2013 and the coordinator of the technical standing committee in June 2014. He is fascinated by the technical challenges that family history data present and human-computer interaction that the underlying data models inspire, particularly as it relates to collaborative research.

Richard Smith – Technical Standing Committee Co-Cordinator

Richard Smith has been interested in genealogy for more than 20 years, and joined FHISO in April 2013. He has been an active contributor to FHISO’s Call for Papers and since July 2013 has served as the co-coordinator of FHISO’s Technical Standing Committee. Richard lives in Cambridge, England and works for Mythic Beasts, an internet hosting company he co-founded in 2000.He previously spent seven years working as a C++ developer in a knowledge management start-up, and holds Master of Arts and Master of Natural Science degrees from Cambridge University where he studied physics. He is familiar with a wide range of open standards in the field of data representation and exchange, and is looking forward to putting this experience to use as FHISO develop new genealogical standards.

Andrew Hatchett – Membership Standing Committee Coordinator

An amateur genealogist for more than 50 years, Andrew Hatchett served in the United States Air Force and has experience in business, office management, sales and quality control. He retired from Laboratory Corporation of America in 2001 and has since been a beta tester for several software companies.He joined BetterGEDCOM in February 2011; in November of that year, he became Moderator of the BetterGEDCOM Wiki and part of the group organizing FHISO. Andrew previously served as Vice-President/Secretary of Family History Information Standards Organisation from March 2012 thru August 2013. He presently serves as Membership Standing Committee Coordinator of FHISO and Moderator of the BetterGEDCOM Wiki.

Brett McPhee – Membership Standing Committee Co-Coordinator

Brett McPhee has worked across several fields including banking, retail, manufacturing, government and education. Roles include clerical, farming, assembly, payroll, policy development, style and standards setting, accreditation, web development, IT support, software development, book editing, research and reporting.After researching the history of a heritage listed house he was living in, Brett began researching his own family history in 2006. He has helped many with research and recording their work but often found conflict in how this history data was shared across various programs and platforms. After finding the BetterGEDCOM group, Brett assisted in the initial establishment of FHISO and currently sits as a Board member.

FHISO is also pleased to announce that expiration dates for all memberships purchased before August 1, 2014 are being extended by an additional year.

We are pleased to announce that the FHISO Board have approved a Operations and Policy Manual which should help clarify how we envisage the standards development process proceeding. We identify three main phases in the production of a new standards: idea generation, exploratory work, and project development. The manual details how these stages will operate to ensure an open, transparent and inclusive development process.

Idea generation is where we find out from the community what areas they want to see addressed in future standards. It began with the Call for Papers we announced last spring. More recently we set up the tsc-public mailing list for more informal discussion. Even though we are ready to begin exploratory work in certain areas, we welcome new ideas from all interested parties and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

Exploratory work will be carried out in a number of exploratory groups (or EGs), each exploring a particular area. We expect the first of these to commence work shortly. Each group will be issued with specific directives detailing its precise responsibilities. Typically this phase will begin with a review of current applications and standards. Third-party research and ideas submitted to FHISO will be considered, and a consensus reached on the scope of future FHISO work in the field. The EGs will then try to build consensus on the major decisions necessary to recommend the broad substance of the eventual standard.

Project development is the last stage. Project teams will pull together areas of exploratory work and develop them into a coherent standards. This is where the details will get sorted out and the inevitable inconsistencies resolved. The result will be a proposed standard that, after review by the Technical Standing Committee and the Board, may be adopted as a standard by a ballot of all FHISO members.

The Family History Information Standards Organisation (FHISO) is pleased to announce that its Technical Standing Committee is starting the technical work on a new, open genealogical standard. We are seeking to build an active and diverse community to collaborate in this process, and we encourage FHISO members and non-members alike to participate.

Much of the initial technical work will be carried out in exploratory groups, each focusing on a specific aspect of the FHISO’s standardisation work. For each group, we are looking for members of the FHISO who are willing to commit to active participation. Once a group has enough committed participants and starts work, anyone will be able to join in with that work.

Don’t want to join one of these exploratory groups, but still want to be involved? No problem! We have created the tsc-public mailing list for the discussion of any other technical matter that you believe the FHISO should be interested in. Perhaps you disagree with our decision on how to proceed? This is the place to tell us. The FHISO is community-owned and your opinions matter to us.

Finally, we recommend that all interested parties subscribe to the tsc-announce mailing list, which is a very low-volume list that we will use for occasional announcements and updates. If you want to contact the Technical Standing Committee, we can be reached by email at tsc@fhiso.org.

We regret taking so long to reach this stage. The hiatus has been due to a combination of unforeseen events outside our control, but these are largely resolved and we have streamlined our processes hopefully to avoid a recurrence.

The Family History Information Standards Organisation (FHISO) is seeking an interested and qualified volunteer to serve as Co-coordinator of the FHISO Technical Standing Committee (TSC). The TSC is responsible for the work to achieve FHISO’s substantial technical goals, as expressed by the Board, and it oversees all Technical Projects. The TSC determines the requirements for (scope of work, deliverables, time and resource requirements) and initiates or approves all Technical Project work; directs and/or develops and maintains requisite Project Team Directives; may appoint Coordinators and other Project Team members and assigns other roles as appropriate; it suspends or dissolves Technical Project Teams.

The TSC Co-coordinator is a voting member of the FHISO Board of Directors, and serves as Vice-chair of the TSC. The ideal candidate for this position is an individual with expertise in the operation of standards organisations or in coordinating the efforts of multiple project teams.

Individuals interested in being considered for this position are asked to submit notice of their interest to the current FHISO Secretary, Andy Hatchett, at agh3rd@fhiso.org. The email should include a brief biography indicating relevant expertise. Applications will be accepted until the position is filled.

Family History Information Standards Organisation, Inc. (FHISO) is pleased to announce the appointment of Drew Smith as the first Chair of FHISO, effective 1 July 2013. Drew is currently the Organisational Member Representative to FHISO from the Federation of Genealogical Societies (FGS).

“I am deeply honored to have been given this opportunity by the FHISO Board,” Drew said. “As someone who has made a career in information technology and librarianship, I recognize the critical importance of information standards, and as a long-time genealogist, I understand the needs of the world’s genealogy product and service vendors, repositories, societies, and individuals to collaborate and to share family history information. I look forward to leading an international effort to support the creation of these essential information standards.”

“We are excited to have Drew join us in this leadership role, as it marks a significant milestone in transitioning the organisation from its formative state into an operating standards development body,” said Robert Burkhead, FHISO Acting Chair and Technical Standing Committee Coordinator. “Drew’s knowledge and experience in the industry will serve FHISO’s membership and the entire community well.”

Individuals from FHISO member organisations expressed their own praise and support for Drew’s appointment. “Drew brings an excellent synthesis of a genealogical librarian and an active player in the larger family history community, and I look forward to working with him in his new role,” said D. Joshua Taylor, Lead Genealogist and Business Development Manager – North America for brightsolid online publishing, the creators of findmypast.com.

“Having worked with Drew in various organizations and committees, I believe he is the perfect choice to chair FHISO at this formative time,” said Bruce Buzbee, President of RootsMagic, Inc. “I have seen firsthand his organizational skills and leadership qualities in groups where members may have very different opinions or somewhat different goals.”

Loretto (Lou) Szucs, Vice President of Community Relations for Ancestry.com, had this to say: “Having known and worked with Drew for more than fifteen years, I can’t think of anyone who is better qualified to serve as the first Chair of this important new organization. Drew has consistently shown his outstanding leadership skills in working with family history organizations, libraries, and other historical and technology organizations. As the world’s largest online family history resource, with more than 2.5 million subscribers and more than 11 billion records online, Ancestry.com is proud to be a founding member of FHISO.”

“The appointment of Drew Smith as Chair of FHISO sends a strong signal to all wait-and-see organisations,” said Bob Coret, founder of Coret Genealogie. “FHISO is becoming a strong organisation which, with the recent Call for Papers, is leading the way in developing genealogy and family history information standards. As a Founding Member of FHISO from the Netherlands I’m pleased to hear that Drew Smith also embraces the non-English part of the genealogical community, which reflects the international character of FHISO.”

Drew Smith is an Assistant Librarian with the Academic Services unit of the University of South Florida (USF) Tampa Library, and serves as the liaison librarian to the USF School of Information. He has taught graduate-level courses in genealogical librarianship and indexing/abstracting, and undergraduate-level courses in web design. Drew earlier worked for academic computing departments at USF and at Clemson University (South Carolina).

Drew is a Director of FGS (2008-2013), chair of its Technology Committee, and “Rootsmithing with Technology” columnist for its FORUM magazine. He is past Secretary of the Association of Professional Genealogists (APG). Drew is President of the Florida Genealogical Society of Tampa and has served on the board of the Florida State Genealogical Society. He administers the GENEALIB electronic mailing list with over 1200 genealogy librarians as subscribers, a list he founded in 1996.

Drew has been the co-host of The Genealogy Guys Podcast since September 2005, and together with George G. Morgan has produced over 250 one-hour episodes. Drew is author of the book Social Networking for Genealogists, published in 2009 by Genealogical Publishing Company, and with George is co-author of the upcoming book Advanced Genealogy Research Skills, to be published in September 2013 by McGraw-Hill. Drew has written extensively for NGS NewsMagazine (now NGS Magazine), Genealogical Computing, and Digital Genealogist.

Drew holds a Bachelor of Science in Electrical and Computer Engineering and a Master of Science in Industrial Management from Clemson University, and a Master of Arts in Library and Information Science from USF.

Eneclann (www.eneclann.ie) and Family History Information Standards Organisation, Inc. (FHISO) announced today that Eneclann has finalised its plans to become a founding member of the organisation. Brian Donovan, Eneclann’s CEO, said of the partnership “Digitising, indexing and publishing family history records online is fraught with problems. Genealogy needs FHISO to help navigate a collaborative solution to shared problems, and to set meaningful standards, and we in Eneclann are delighted to be partners in this”. The company will participate with other FHISO members from the global genealogical community in the development of standards for the digital representation and sharing of family history and genealogical information. As an organisation involved in the management, digitisation of, and research with archives, they bring a unique perspective on the work of FHISO. Fiona Fitzsimons, Research Director, commented ‘Digitisation of records has transformed the way we do genealogy, but we need standards so we can be sure of the quality of the electronic records we use. FHISO is a welcome development to achieve this goal.’

“FHISO is proud to welcome Eneclann as a Founding Member. Recognised for its innovation, Eneclann has been involved in major digitisation projects. Its experts bring to FHISO professional services experience in the mixed-language and rich cultural heritage that is associated with Irish genealogy. Brian Donovan, himself an expert in digitisation techniques, also brings project management and business development skills to FHISO. Eneclann’s experience contributes to a unique perspective in the genealogy marketplace”, said FHISO Organiser, Tony Proctor (UK and Ireland).

About Eneclann Ltd.

Eneclann Ltd., incorporated in 1998, is the largest genealogical company in Ireland. Well known internationally for its research for the hit T.V. series Who Do You Think You Are? worldwide, as well as the U.S. T.V. series Faces of America (2010), and Finding Your Roots (2012), Eneclann has also traced the Irish roots of President Barack Obama and several celebrities, most recently Tom Cruise.

Eneclann has developed significant skills in archival management, and expertise in digital technology. The company was instrumental in the founding of the online service www.irishorigins.com in 2003, and more recently in 2011 launched the web service www.findmypast.ie with their Scottish joint-venture partner brightsolid.

To date the company has brought over 65 million genealogical records online, and has acted as a trusted partner of several archives, libraries and other Irish public institutions in making their historic records available to a wide audience. Find out more at: www.eneclann.ie

About FHISO

FHISO is a standards-developing organisation bringing the international family history and genealogical community together in a transparent, self-governing forum for the purpose of developing information standards to solve today’s interoperability issues. To learn more about FHISO, visit http://fhiso.org/. To become an enquiring member, visit http://fhiso.org/membership-enquiries/.